We went to the BBQ Exchange on Feb. 29, 2020 with a friend. We read an article a few years back that this place was ranked a “top 50 in the US†bbq place. The place opened at 11 am. When we pulled up at 1:45, the lot was filled. The yelp reviews give it really excellent reviews.
It has a very modest interior and you order and take your food to a table. Tables are all picnic style with benches, no booths. Interior area to sit is modest and pretty cramped (day was too cold to be at outside picnic tables). The tables had 4 bottles of sauce available – a Carolina sauce, two fairly traditional bbq sauces (one sweeter than the other), and a mustard bacon sauce. The sauces were good, but nothing outstanding or original.
Our friend ordered the pulled pork plate which was a pile of chopped pork, very light sauce and two sides. He selected cole slaw and a cold broccoli salad. He also had his choice of 3 or 4 breads and took a pumpkin muffin. Bentley and I split the 4 meat platter. We chose brisket (sliced not chopped which they also offered), pulled chicken (only kind of chicken offered), pork ribs (3 in an order) and sausage. It came with two sides. We got cole slaw and potato salad as the sides and then ordered extra sides of beans, collards and hush puppies. It came with bread, so we selected the corn bread. I wanted to get some onion rings, but when I learned they did not make them fresh in house, but instead just cooked them from frozen which were commercially purchased, I passed.
The pork platter was $10, the 4 meat platter was $19.75, the additional sides were $2 per side for a small serving. I felt the prices were fairly reasonable.
As we were tasting and eating, we wrote our impressions and I am just going to share those impressions as opposed to writing a traditional review.
MEATS
1. Brisket – chewy, under cooked, good flavor, give a 5 on a KCBS scale.
2. Chicken – too much sauce, creosote flavor, just not good, did not like sauce being added without giving me a choice..
3. Ribs – they were a dry rub, no sauce which I appreciated, but dry and overcooked with little flavor. Bent said they tasted like they had been cooked the day before. They had very little meat.
4. Pork – chopped and very lightly sauced; I thought a little dry and not much flavor, but Bent felt it was better than that.
5. Sausage – good, smokey and probably the best meat we tasted that day; we both would order it again.
SIDES
1. Potato salad – meh, there was no there there. It was chunks of potatoes with some mashed potatoes, mayo and mustard mixed it, maybe a bit of vinegar also. Would have liked some celery, relish and chopped eggs in there. Not that great.
2. Beans – beans were sweet, so Bentley did not care for them. I love sweet baked beans, but these were just swimming in sauce. Good flavor, they just need to cut the sauce by half.
3. Collards – major difference of opinion time. I thought they were well cooked, but way too salty. Bent thought they were very good, properly seasoned and properly cooked.
4. Cole slaw – both thought it was average, nothing special. It was mayo based.
5. Hush puppies – really good, crispy, Bentley thought they were the second best thing he ate.
BREADS
1. Pumpkin muffin – moist, perfectly cooked, nice balance of spices and flavor, very, very good.
2. Corn bread – moist, a hint of sweetness, very, very good.
Obviously from the yelp reviews, a lot of folks think very highly of this place. I don’t think of us as food snobs, but I do think we know and can grade bbq and we were simply not taken with it and I could not recommend it. Personally, I was not that impressed and there are better places in Culpeper than the BBQ Ex
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Topic: BBQ Restaurant Review -- the BBQ Exchange, Gordonsville, Virginia (Read 960 times)